I just purchased a new iMac. It has OS X 10.5.2 as the system software. My wife wants the "old iMac" in her crafts room. I would like to connect them with a wireless set up so we can both share the same internet connection (the two rooms are about 25' apart, through 3 sheet rock walls). The old iMac was purchased in 2002 and I never upgraded the operating system beyond OS X 10.3.3. I am connected to the internet via a DSL modem via an ethernet cable. Both Macs have built in ethernet.
I have tried twice to get some assistance from the folks at Frys, but so far no luck. They sold me a Netgear (WPD824v2) wireless router and assured me that was all I needed. The instructions that came with the router are mostly for PC's. I followed the instructions, but could not get it to communicate with my new iMac much less the old one.
I would appreciate any suggestions (preferably something easy) on how to set this up for wireless connections. I can take the Netgear back if I need to.
Thanks,
John....

I would suggest buying an AirPort Base Station. You just plug them in and they are real easy to set up. You could buy an older model or get the latest AirPort Extreme Base Station. You could even go with a new Time Capsule. They should be out soon and you would have a nice integrated backup storage system. Does your old iMac support wireless?

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dl ... category0=

I guess this is as good a place as any for me to post a question that I've had for a while. Why are the Apple base stations so highly recommended? Mostly, I'm trying to figure out what benefits it offers over a $40 router. There are two possible answers that come to mind.

The first one is the user interface. Personally, I don't like using the walkthrough setups for routers, and I typically jump in with the IP address in a browser to go into the advanced configuration settings. I guess a better step by step setup process could be helpful, but I wouldn't imagine it being worth $100+ dollars extra for something that you are probably only doing once, or at least not very often.

The other thing I can think of is the range, which would be supported by higher signal power. This seems likely to me, based on the fact that people say that it shows 100% signal strength in iStumbler and the Belkin router shows 90% for me when the antenna is touching my laptop. However, there doesn't seem to be any need for this for many people, and not in this particular situation.

Responding to the original post, I personally don't like Netgear routers. They basically force you to use their step-by-step setup, and even if that's all you want right now, the advanced settings are nice to get to eventually if you're at all curious. Some nice custom firmware has been made for Linksys routers, that's currently what I have for my own router. It's possible that none of that is useful to you though, if you just want a basic network setup and don't plan to play around with all the settings ever.

Love the name/avatar, "i'm lost," but hope this site helps you find your way quickly

I've used Apple's Airport base stations since they were first introduced, but admit I've often questioned why I'm spending way more to create a wireless network than I need to when I hear of others using non-Apple stuff.

I don't think signal power/range is the reason, at least in my case; I can see numerous non-Apple wireless networks from my Mac - far more than the number of nearby homes - so they obviously crank out the power. My AP BS is set to 50% power and still reliably reaches every Mac I use at home.

To me, the primary reason to buy an Apple BS really echoes the same reason we're willing to spend more for a Mac at all: Usability. The interface and integration of Apple's wireless offerings into my Mac is worth the price because I have no interest in becoming an expert on how wireless networks really work so I can fix the occasional problem. I just want it to work, period. Even with Apple's elegant, simplified AP Utility, there's stuff I could putz with that confuses me and could easily lead me down a path I don't want to go, but it's always allowed me to quickly setup/connect/troubleshoot any wireless issues I've had, saving me who-knows-how-much time, which is worth the expense in my opinion.

Just my two cents, and great question.

I really wonder what the interface is like to make it that much easier to set up. Most of the steps seem like they would be easy enough to create a simple interface for (and I thought that most routers had a nice walkthrough for setting them up), but setting up security on the network seems like it would be hard to do in a simple way (without requiring the user to actually understand what's going on). Even if there's some cool feature where you can connect the computer once and they sync up or something, I doubt it would work with a non-Apple computer.

Based on a quick google search, it seems you need extra software to be able to configure one of these. An extra program to run if you want to do things from a Windows computer, and something extra to keep updated if you're on an Apple. No wonder I couldn't figure out how to help my sister (who is currently using Windows Vista, it came on the laptop our grandparents got for her) when she was asking about this over the phone a while ago (her roommate got an apple computer and base station and someone else set up the base station).

Well, if that's all there is to it, at least I know that there's no reason for me personally to buy one.

As for the name, it doesn't apply to my experience with Apple computers (almost 2 years now, but I've learned a lot of the details in that time). It's just carried over from playing CounterStrike without having a clue where I was going in the maps.

The connection should be set up like this...

phone line->dsl modem->ethernet cable->Netgear router-> then ethernet cable or wireless signal to the 2 Macs.

You can get to the settings for the router by using a web browser and typing in 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 (varies depending on model). It's best to do the setup procedure with a Mac that is connected to the router by ethernet cable. I'd start by leaving the SSID on and using no encryption and if that works ok you can start enabling various encryption and security methods.

You'll need to power cycle the modem and the router after you get the initial settings setup. Also if your ISP uses a MAC address to authenticate that you are who you say you are, you'll need to spoof the MAC address of the Mac to the router.

Try these steps and if you have any questions let us know!

I agree that setting up the basics of a wireless network are pretty straightforward these days; but it is my ability to set up additional AP security, easily update software, etc., that I find worth the extra cost, and without needing to become an expert to do so.

And I should know better than to make an assumption about your MacOSG name, too, so thanks for the insight. I've always thought a thread explaining the reasons behind why members chose their user names would prove pretty interesting. My user name is pretty dull; just my initials!

I don't think you can do this with Netgear routers, actually (hence my complaint about Netgear routers in my first post). They end up redirecting you to pages that don't work and doing all sorts of weird stuff. After doing plenty of configuring of a Linksys router, configuring it with custom firmware on it, and configuring a Belkin router, I couldn't figure out how to access the configuration page. I think your best bet is to use the CD that came with the router.

Of course, try going to an IP address first, and if that doesn't work then you'll have to figure out something else.

Netgear routers used to be configureable via a web address as Golfer suggested. I haven't used a Netgear router in a while. After I got two in a row that were either bad or otherwise would not function properly I have up and changed brands. The problem I have had with some third party routers is that they are too dependent upon the user running their automated setup. If you can't do that, say for example the setup utility is too dependent in IE for Windows, and don't understand router setup this us a problem. Some of the manuals aren't a lot of help either.

If you run into a piece of gear that relies on some sort of automated web based setup program that depends on IE for Windows there may be an easy solution. Enable Safari's debug menu and set the user agent to MSIE for Windows. I tried this recently out of frustration with a NAS drive and it worked. This was necessary because the directions for this device gave very little information that didn't depend upon the setup utility.